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Official Website

Hours

Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm; Sat-Sun, closed

Nearby Subway Stops

B, D, F, M at 47th-50th Sts.-Rockefeller Center

Payment Methods

American Express, MasterCard, Visa

Special Features

Budget

Good for Teens

Profile

In contrast to smaller, salon-based schools, Redken Exchange is spread into two sections: The Theater, a 68-seat, flipchart-filled lecture hall where facilitators preach the grand theories of cutting, coloring, and building a business; and The Workshop, a lab equipped with cutting stations and a hair color bar, where students apply their newly learned skills to mannequins and live models, while upbeat tunes blast in the background. Educators are top stylists and salon owners that have been backstage authorities for Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, Prada, and Gucci. Teachers work three-at-a-time and take an interactive approach to monthly classes with names like Cut & Know Why and Coloring Out of Your Mind; there are also a limited number of specialty sessions with leading industry names such as Sam Villa, which sometimes fill up a year and a half in advance. For locals, this means lots of hair modeling opportunities: Demo models get cut and colored for free, but must be open to drastic change and to being a lecture prop for a day. Makeover workshop models have more input and less time required of them but pay a $15 nominal fee for services. — Christine Ajudua